hakuna matata

the priestly blessing

so i was listening to the sermon of the week by bethel church in redding, which was by wesley campbell and it was about "the priestly blessing". okay, i didn't finish listening to it but what i got from it so far was that it's selfish to not ask for blessings. because if you overflow, other people get blessed too! haha. so exciting. anyway, so wesley campbell said this is the most-often quoted passage in the Bible and here it is:

Numbers 6
22 The LORD said to Moses, 23 "Tell Aaron and his sons, 'This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them:
24 " ' "The LORD bless you and keep you;
25 the LORD make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you;
26 the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace." '
27 "So they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them."

and then later, when i went to the homecoming acappella concert with Qianwen, the exact same passage came up because Testimony (christian acappella group) sang it! I was stunned. like, seriously. what are the odds of my downloading this particular sermon and having the key passage come up two hours after at an acappella concert... anyhow, i haven't really figured out why God is telling me about that passage yet, but i'm sure something will illuminate itself tmr at church or something. :)

oh!! and campbell said "blessing" in hebrew means to endue with power for success, prosperity, fecundity, longevity, etc.. kind of powerful.

and some other random thing i never posted. my dorm, kimball has 2 halls on each floor (because we're a weird H-shaped building). and this year it's "kimbroadway" (our theme is broadway, which is awesome :) and my hall happens to be the lion king hall!! so my blog title is particularly apt. as linus pointed out when i moved in, but for some reason i didn't post it. so here it is :)

blessed!

many times! haha. it was so funny, when tu and porsche (yep, that's his name.. thai pple :p) knocked on my door i was vaguely surprised (cos last year it was just a whole bunch of sealnetters at my door) and wondering what was going on... and i thought they wanted to throw me in the shower immediately cos tu was like take off your glasses and close your eyes! which i refused to. aha. anyhow, it was a very pleasant surprise (and slightly shocking, really) to see so many pple in the kimball lounge! aww. <3 much love. all my favourite people at stanford. well, maybe not ALL, but the large majority. haha. sealnetters + singaporeans. so nice to see everyone :) although it's kinda weird cos as the years pass, the mix of people changes and now i'm the senior! !!! aah. anyhow, i should really sleep. oh, psets... ah well. God's grace is enough. oh, speaking of which, i didn't have to have extra meeting tonight for markstrat (this business simulation), SO glad about that. :)

o ye of little faith

4 hours at the career fair (and in the sun) without food left me feeling oh so drained... when i came back i REALLY did not want to be doing anymore career related stuff or even talking to people. haha. but i still had two info sessions to go to. of which i didn't really talk to ppl, heh. oh well. and then dayoung & connie were doing case studies and i'm like ah... i need to do more prep, given how much i suck at structure.. and it just led me down this path of being negative and still not knowing what i want for a job (i don't really want to work, i don't know if i like studying much either, ...) and ended up convincing myself that this fall is going to end up like all the past winter quarters where i did NOT have a job by the end of the quarter!

okay actually i suppose i could find something else cool to do. but it's just so... aiyah. i hate recruiting so much. alright i should stop digging myself into this ditch. but so i just remembered part of a verse (kind of reprimanding myself - how in line with glen's message last week about how we need to preach the sermon to ourselves more often...) - "o ye of little faith"

and here's the passage:
Matt 6:30 Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
31 “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

church insights today

i can't imagine how i didn't understand it, but today at church i got some insights which were quite startling! but before that... one more coincidence to add to the food-happiness of yesterday (although this one isn't food-related). so for some reason this morning i was thinking about who was going to be at church and realized i hadn't seen ih ming in a while (and he also owes me $ for lisa's bday present, haha). and then when we got to church he was there! like, wow. what are the odds, since he travels 2-3 times a month.

so during opening worship i was reminded of dewen's email on his bible class on hearing God's voice. and it kind of linked to how last year sicheng was saying he kept seeing palindromes around and thought that was God's way of telling him He was around.. and then i suddenly had this revelation that this series of three coincidences (or whatever you want to call them - my thinking about certain things and having them happen) was God's way of speaking to me. for now, at least. kind of reminded me of summer too... the humour @ bluepulse + the 1st time i got to hangout w ser after a looong time as a response to how i was thinking about the relative lack of laughter after rgs when reading my diaries.

i was telling lisa about the food thing, and how i was (obviously) very happy with my newfound delicacies, and she said, "God knows how to make you happy" and I was like hmm it is kind of sad that now food makes me happy, i'm quite sure it wasn't THAT important before i met jackie (yes, i blame you. i would NEVER have waxed lyrical about honey butter before spending time with you..)

one other thing: last night i was totally freaking out about how many job apps i have to do this week, plus the markstrat simulation which drove me nuts since friday, but we made our decisions today so just have to write the 1pg paper which i sent a draft out already, so it's up to the other two to edit now.. and fitting exercise in and God-time (although recently i came up with this ingenious idea of listening to sermon podcasts while elliptical-ing, only tried it once though) and case-interview-prac and doing hw/making sure my grades are still good.

anyway, the pastor was talking about mark's journey today and asked us "what is the purpose? what is your calling?" and i had another blinding revelation that school and grades are so small and insignificant if i look at my life from the bigger picture. or from the view of eternity. but not even that, it was/is like an entire universe and this is just one little speck.. even so, it's hard for me to let go of that i guess. still wanna do well and everything. brand names are still alluring. oh, the woes of being raised in singapore and going through an elite education system.

and i've just spent 20mins writing this when i really should've been struggling over econ and philosophy -wry look-. i should be glad that econ is interdisciplinary but i didn't sign up for this when i decided to take this class! -_- psht. philosophy is so incomprehensible sometimes, makes me think of how sean said it required lots of weed. haha.